MOROCCO: Unlocking Urban Development in Morocco through the Testing of Partnership Development Areas and Support for the Development of Policy Reforms and Changes in Practices (Financing Urbanization Phase II)

The rapid urbanization of Morocco is expected to continue and expand in the coming years, while the annual growth rate of the population is declining (1.25 percent in 2014 compared with 1.38 percent in 2004), it will continue to become urbanized (5.8 million additional inhabitants are expected to move to the cities in the next 15 years). Financial resources allocated to finance urbanization are also largely insufficient to meet current and future needs. Annual needs for upgrading existing infrastructure and development of new infrastructure are estimated at DH 32 billion per year, including DH 22 billion per year under the authority of the municipalities. 

Building on the 2020 PPIAF technical assistance that supported the definition of a roadmap presenting options for the development of tools adapted to the Moroccan context for the financing of infrastructure investments required to support, PPIAF and the World Bank are helping to set up partnership development areas in selected pilot sites and develop the legal framework for municipalities to play their role in the urbanization of their territories. This second phase supported selected operational interventions to implement some of the proposals identified in the roadmap. Two technical notes were produced to inform policy and regulatory changes, including:

• A guidance note and proposals to develop a regulatory framework clarifying provisions and modalities for urban extension, identified as part of Moroccan municipalities' prerogatives under Article 85 of Municipalities' organic law, 
• A benchmark of the French and Spanish experiences to inform the guidance note and identify operational mechanisms that provide the enabling environment for the implementation of PDAs. If the role of local authorities, which is predominant today in France, is certainly not transposable to Morocco, one can nevertheless imagine the establishment in cities of project management systems with variable geometry and organized in such a way as to take into account local realities and the multitude of actors involved in urban development, which should be able to be coordinated by a regulatory body intervening as close as possible to the field.

Additionally, this technical assistance helped prepare a diagnostic report to modernize local tax administrations considered as key levers to enhance revenue mobilization at the city level.